Publications

Effectiveness of runoff and erosion mitigation measures

Surface runoff from agricultural fields is a major input pathway of pesticides into surface waters. The aim of this project....

Evaluation of the effectiveness of risk mitigation measures to reduce pesticide inputs into surface water via runoff and erosion

 

 

Surface runoff from agricultural fields is a major input pathway of pesticides into surface waters. The aim of this project was to i) analyze the effectiveness of various mitigation measures to reduce pesticide runoff and erosion inputs into surface waters, ii) assess the suitability of the measures found effective for use in regulatory pesticide risk assessment, and iii) make recommendations how the potentially suitable measures could be applied in pesticide risk assessment in Germany. Following a literature analysis, 16 risk mitigation measures were presented to five experts for evaluation. Measures finally selected for quantitative analysis belong to 3 groups: i) microdams in row crops, ii) vegetative filter strips (VFS), iii) soil conservation measures. Subsequently, the effectiveness of these measures was evaluated based on experimental data using different statistical methods. Both VFS and microdams have been found effective and suitable and can therefore be recommended for application in regulatory pesticide risk assessment.  Soil conservation measures are in principle promising, but there is a need for more well-documented data in order to identify under which conditions they are effective.

The final project report is now available here. Please note that the report is in German
A publication in the peer-reviewed journal Pest Management Science is in preparation.

Authors: 1Stefan Reichenberger, Stephan Sittig, Sebastian Multsch, 2 Michael Klein, 3 Isabel O‘Connor, Simon Spycher, 4 Kai Thomas, Matthias Trapp

1 knoell Germany GmbH, Germany
2 Fraunhofer IME, Germany
3 EBP Schweiz AG, Switzerland
4
RLP AgroScience, Germany